🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 21-27 Feb 2024

Welcome to the 34th edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. It’s for paying subscribers only (the paywall is at the jobs board), so thank you for supporting this. Thanks to everyone who contributed! It really is a community effort and I just curate most of it. 
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🆕  News & happenings this week

🖼️  The Collective gallery on Calton Hill has announced details of the first exhibition of its 40th anniversary year: ‘U Scantu’: A Disorderly Tale (2022) by Sicilian artist Elisa Giardina Papa from 1 March – 19 May. First exhibited at the 2022 Venice Biennale, U Scantu brings together ceramic sculptures and a large-scale video installation to explore the Sicilian myth of the ‘donne di fora' - ‘women from the outside and beside themselves’. Collective’s Director Sorcha Carey said:

“Collective has a long history of introducing the work of international practitioners to Scotland and the UK. As we look forward to celebrating our 40th anniversary later this year, we are delighted to bring Elisa’s ground-breaking practice and distinctive imaginary to Calton Hill and the City Observatory”.

🎨  Organisers of the annual Leith Creative Trail event are throwing open the doors with a community meeting on Thursday 22 February. They say: “Would you like to input into the development of Leith Creative Trail? Come and chat through your thoughts, feedback or growth ideas. All are welcome whether you have been involved before or not. Whether you are a venue or a route participant. Come one, come all.” - It’s at Edinburgh Open Workshop on Assembly Street from 6.30pm on Thursday 22 Feb. - More details here.

💰  The results of this year’s Leith Chooses funding competition will be announced at the Leith Community Centre (in the cafe area) at 6.30pm on Thursday. Plenty of local creative projects were among those bidding for the money. - Find out more about the funding process here.

🎪  The Fringe will begin sharing show details on Thursday. The festival is teasing the announcements with videos on its social pages: 

🍿 Local film news:

🎞️  Screen Porty brings two films to the Wash House in Portobello on Saturday. The Princess Bride is the family matinee at 3pm, followed by Lars and the Real Girl at 6.30pm. - Screen Porty.

🎥  Scotland’s Ibero-American Documentary Film Festival IberoDocs begins its 10th year today with events across Edinburgh. Running until 2 March, it’s a programme of documentaries from Spain, Portugal, and Latin America alongside workshops, musical events and filmmaker Q&As. This year’s programme is on the theme of ‘Reconnecting’ and features places undergoing major transformation and people who embody the spirit of community, including ‘women with unwavering resilience and artists who have shared their souls despite adversity’.

🎬  Cinetopia: DOC, a monthly documentary film club, is on tonight from 7pm at The Cameo cinema. It includes the Scottish premiere of The Castle / El Castillo. It’s in collaboration with IberoDocs. 

🍿  Here’s this month’s Cinetopia podcast on EHFM. They dive into the new reviews, documentaries, interviews, awards previews, GFT picks and upcoming releases. 

  ⮑  In other EHFM news, the Works In Progress show will go live with an in-person event on 9 March at Embassy on Broughton Street Lane. - More details here on Eventbrite.
  ⮑  The station is also accepting applications from women and marginalised genders for a one-off 30-minute live slot as part of EHFM’s first open decks on Friday 8th March to mark International Women’s Day. - Get involved here.

🇵🇸  Musicians, poets and artists are teaming up at Summerhall on 2 March to perform in the name of solidarity with the people of Gaza. - More details here.

🎸  Bruntsfield music shop Thorne Records is also supporting the cause. It will donate 100% of profits from sales of the new Young Fathers EP to Médecins Sans Frontières' emergency operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

💅  After hosting the likes of The Last Dinner Party, the Assai Records shop on Grindlay Street will close from Sunday until 16 March for a refurb.
  ⮑  The venue was visited last week by BBC 6 Music’s Huw Stephens in celebration of Independent Venue Week. Have a listen here. 

✍️  Five Edinburgh-based writers are among the recipients of the Scottish Book Trust’s 2024 New Writers Award. They are Amos O’Connor, John Lawrie, Sarah Whiteside, Katherine Hudson and Les Hodge. The Scottish Book Trust CEO Marc Lambert said: “With our awardees exploring a rich variety of themes in their work, and writing in English, Gaelic and Scots, I am excited to follow their journey throughout the year and beyond, as we help to nurture and build on their talents.”  - Read more here.

🖨️  Edinburgh-based publishers are represented in the British Book Awards 2024 Small Press of the Year award nominations. The Nibbie winners will be announced on 15 March, while book of the year will be announced on 8 March. - See the full nominee list here.

👗  Dovecot will host an evening viewing of its latest exhibition Andy Warhol: The Textiles along with a live fashion show by the Beira sustainable luxury fashion brand on 9 March. - More details.

🎭 What's on Edinburgh's stages this week? Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:

This week is all about the one-acts: the Scottish Community Drama Association's competitive Festival of One Act Plays, in which SCDA members compete for prestige and trophies.

Taking place over three nights at the Church Hill Theatre (Thurs - Sat: tickets), the nine entries form the Edinburgh and District rounds of the competition. The winners will go on to compete in the Eastern Divisional Final at the McLaren Hall, Killin in April. The quality of the plays is always high and worth the ludicrously small ticket price of £11 a night.

Elsewhere, David Grieg's  Two Sisters is up and running at the Lyceum (ends 2 March: tickets). It has a good handful of four star reviews, although not from our Hugh Simpson, who gave it ★★★☆☆ Wistful.  There is no question that Poggle at the Studio Theatre (Fri/Sat: tickets) is a work of genius for the six month to five year age group, however.

At the Playhouse there’s a guid old Girls Night Oot! on Friday (tickets) and a license to dress up and sing along on Saturday with first Sing-a-Long-a Matilda (4pm: tickets) and then Sing-a-Long-a The Greatest Showman (7pm: tickets). Opera fans are in for a big treat with Scottish Opera’s take on Marx in London at the Festival Theatre (Thurs, Sat: tickets). 

As always, there’s a full round up on the weekly listings page which this week focusses on the One Acts.

🎹  Local singer and piano player Chiara Lordi will be raising money for the Action for ME charity with a concert in Stockbridge on 15 March.

💃  Leith Depot will host the Vitamin C club night’s first birthday bash on Friday. DJs Vic Galloway (BBC Radio) and Andy Wake (The Phantom Band) have special guests this month: Avalanche Party & Faex Optim will be performing LIVE, followed by a Guest DJ set from Guto Pryce (Super Furry Animals/GULP). - More details and tickets are here.

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🫧  This month’s Soapbox for Creatives event is on Tuesday 27 February from 8am to 19am at Sierra Metro on Ferry Road. - Free tickets are here.

📌  “HYDRATE - EDINBURGH Creative Writing Workshop/Meet - Jane Cormack - For Women Who Write (or want to). Join us in Edinburgh for the first HYDRATE in-person creative writing workshop/meetup to help you rehydrate your writing life. (This event has been happening online so far). We'll meet at the lovely RED BOX cafe in Marchmont, Edinburgh for a cosy winter morning of connection, themed creative writing prompts over tea/coffee and cake (optional!). This will be a relaxed hybrid workshop/meetup.” - Sign up here.

📌  Off The Record is a music industry event on 24 February open to anyone aged 16-25 looking to get started in music in Scotland. This year’s line up has been announced, featuring key figures from the music business taking part in seminars, workshops and advice sessions. - Find out more and register here. 

📌  “Rock the Boat open mic is back at Summerhall on Thursday 7th March 7-9pm! It's free to attend and we still have slots for anyone who'd like to come along and read a poem. Any questions contact rocktheboat@pushtheboatout.org! Sign up here.” - Catherine Wilson Garry, co-host.

📌  “Sign ups are open for the next Chicken Coop Writing Group on February 27 from 6-8 pm at Lost in Leith Bar & Fermentaria. This month the session will explore writing in tandem and playing with how we tell stories. The Chicken Coop is pay-what-you-can with a suggested donation of £3. If you have any questions or need more information contact Naomi Head at naomihead.com or on Instagram @naomieah_” - Naomi Head, facilitator, The Good Egg Project.

🤝  Networking, jobs and funding opportunities: 

Here are the new opportunities, followed by the ‘still open’ list: